Engineering Lead

Engineering Lead – HCM

Location: US East Coast

About the Role

Our clients are looking for an Engineering Lead to lead the development and delivery of their Human Capital Management (HCM) product. This role combines technical leadership, agile delivery ownership and people management, with responsibility for building and developing a high-performing engineering team.

You will lead an autonomous team responsible for delivering modern, full-stack web applications using contemporary frontend frameworks, .NET Core backends and cloud-native technologies. Working closely with Product, Compliance, Legal and other stakeholders, you will ensure the HCM platform delivers reliable, secure and scalable solutions across multiple jurisdictions.

You will play a key role in balancing technical excellence, product innovation and delivery commitments, ensuring the team can respond effectively to evolving customer needs and legislative requirements.

Key Responsibilities

Delivery Leadership

• Own and drive delivery against quarterly objectives and key results (OKRs), balancing product priorities with statutory and tax-year deadlines.
• Establish predictable, high-quality delivery through effective agile practices, continuous improvement and clear accountability.
• Manage stakeholder communication, providing transparent updates on progress, risks, dependencies and delivery commitments, particularly where statutory deadlines may be affected.
• Plan and manage team capacity, workload and recruitment to support current delivery needs and future growth.
• Identify and address delivery risks, dependencies and blockers early, ensuring the team remains focused on the highest-priority outcomes.

Technical Leadership

• Provide technical direction and architectural oversight for the HCM platform, ensuring solutions are scalable, resilient, secure and maintainable.
• Lead the design of high-volume, time-critical payroll processing systems, with a strong focus on calculation accuracy, idempotency, reliability and end-to-end auditability.
• Guide integration architecture across tax engines, payment providers, electronic filing services and third-party HCM and benefits platforms.
• Establish and maintain data governance and security standards for sensitive employee information, compensation data and banking details, supporting relevant regulatory and compliance requirements, including SOC 2 and applicable privacy legislation such as GDPR and CCPA.
• Work closely with Product, Compliance and Legal teams to translate payroll legislation and regulatory changes into clear, robust engineering requirements.
• Champion engineering excellence through effective testing strategies, including TDD/BDD where appropriate, consistent code review practices and rigorous validation of business-critical calculation logic.
• Establish responsible AI-assisted engineering practices, enabling the team to use emerging tools effectively while maintaining appropriate standards for security, quality, accountability and human oversight.
• Remain hands-on where needed, contributing to technical decisions, architecture, code reviews and complex problem-solving.

People Leadership

• Line-manage, coach and develop engineering team members, supporting their technical growth, career progression and long-term success.
• Lead performance reviews, set clear expectations and provide regular, constructive feedback.
• Build an inclusive, collaborative and accountable team culture that encourages ownership, continuous learning and technical excellence.
• Empower the team to make effective decisions while providing the direction, support and resources needed to deliver successfully.
• Identify skills gaps, support recruitment and develop team capability in line with the product roadmap and organisational goals.

Skills and Experience

Technical Expertise

• Frontend technologies: Strong understanding of modern frontend frameworks and the architectural considerations involved in building maintainable, high-quality web applications, such as Angular, React, Vue.js or Blazor.
• Backend engineering: Strong knowledge of C#, .NET Core, ASP.NET Core Web APIs, RESTful services, application architecture and distributed systems.
• Data architecture: Good understanding of SQL and NoSQL technologies, data modelling, performance, integrity and architectural trade-offs.
• Cloud-native engineering: Understanding of modern cloud platforms, scalable application design, deployment practices, observability and operational resilience.
• AI-assisted software engineering: Experience using AI-powered development tools such as GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Devin or Claude Code to support software design, development, testing and debugging. Able to assess their output critically and apply them responsibly to improve engineering productivity and quality.

Leadership and Delivery Experience

• At least six years of software engineering experience, with either one or more years of formal people management experience or two or more years in a technical leadership role.
• Proven experience leading the delivery of complex software initiatives within an agile engineering environment.
• Experience setting technical direction, establishing engineering standards and making sound architectural decisions.
• A track record of balancing technical quality, delivery commitments and competing business priorities.
• Experience establishing effective code review, testing and quality assurance practices.
• Strong communication and stakeholder-management skills, with the ability to explain technical risks, trade-offs and delivery implications clearly.
• Experience working in a regulated, compliance-driven or business-critical software environment.

Desirable Experience

• Experience developing payroll, HCM, HRIS or benefits administration software.
• Familiarity with multi-jurisdiction payroll and tax requirements, such as UK PAYE, US federal, state and local taxation, or equivalent frameworks.
• Experience integrating payroll platforms with tax engines, payment providers, electronic filing services or third-party HR and benefits systems.
• Experience working with sensitive personal and financial data in environments subject to regulatory, security or audit requirements.
• What Success Looks Like
• The engineering team delivers predictable, high-quality outcomes against agreed objectives and critical statutory deadlines.
• The HCM platform remains secure, reliable, scalable and auditable as product capabilities and jurisdictional coverage expand.
• Engineering practices support a strong balance between delivery speed, technical quality and long-term maintainability.
• Legislative and regulatory changes are translated into robust engineering solutions and delivered within required timeframes.
• Team members are engaged, supported and developing their capabilities, with clear ownership and accountability.
• AI-assisted engineering practices improve productivity and decision-making without compromising security, quality or engineering standards.